EARLY DAY STORIES. 103 



be turned in with mine to be cared for during his absence. 

 What he wanted was to get some venison for his winter 

 supply, and he was wilhng to go along for a small share 

 of the game killed. It was therefore agreed that I should 

 furnish everything for the trip, team, wagon, horse feed and 

 provisions for ourselves, and that I should do the hunting. 

 Hank on his part was to mind the camp, take care of the 

 team, and do most of the cooking. For his share of the 

 game, he was content to have one-half of the fore quarters 

 of all game killed by me, and to have all the gamx killed 

 by himself; it being expressly stipulated, however, that his 

 hunting should not trespass upon his camp work, and that 

 he should always get into camp in time to get supper and 

 do the camp work before it became very dark. 



My gun used on this trip was an army carbine. Sharp's 

 pattern, being a single shot breech loader, caliber 50-70 — 

 as good a rifle as I ever hunted with excepting possibly a 

 Winchester rifle that was used on several of my hunting 

 trips. Hank if I remember correctly, carried an old style 

 double barrel, muzzle loading shot gun with percussion lock. 

 I think it was borrowed for the occasion, and even if it 

 was old and out of style, it was still a good gun of its kind. 

 He expected to get some grouse with it anyway even if he 

 did not succeed in getting deer. On a hunting trip grouse 

 come in first rate as an agreeable change of diet. 



Possibly I feel more vividly and hear more plainly the 

 "call of the wild," than do my neighbors of the present day. 

 Whether this is so or not I do not know, or whether this 

 trait in me was inborn or acquired I cannot tell ; nor does 

 it matter, but that I have it in an eminent degree is unde- 

 niable. I hearken back to those old times with feelings of 

 unmingled pleasure, not to say of rapture. Let us drop the 

 thread of this story for a moment and go back to those 

 golden days of the olden time. You may say that it is the 

 reverie of an old man who has already passed his 80th birth- 



